Principal Investigator(s):
O'Neil Washington, David, University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Summary:

This project investigated non-fatal workplace violence in
Lincoln, Nebraska, over an 18-month period. Workplace violence was
defined as any behavior by an individual that was intended to harm
workers of an organization, including all instances of physical and
verbal aggression and violence. The principal investigator coded all
cases of non-fatal workplace violence reported to the Lincoln Police
Department during the study period with regard to 17 factors,
including the type of workplace violence, the intimacy level of the
perpetrator (boyfriend/husband, ex-boyfriend/husband), whether a
weapon was mentioned, whether threats had been made, and the intensity
level of violence. The goals of this project were (1) to present
epidemiological information concerning non-fatal workplace violence,
(2) to address the different types of workplace violence and
differences across those types, and (3) to analyze risk factors
associated with higher and lower intensity violence.

This project investigated non-fatal workplace violence in
Lincoln, Nebraska, over an 18-month period. Workplace violence was
defined as any behavior by an individual that was intended to harm
workers of an organization, including all instances of physical and
verbal aggression and violence. The principal investigator coded all
cases of non-fatal workplace violence reported to the Lincoln Police
Department during the study period with regard to 17 factors,
including the type of workplace violence, the intimacy level of the
perpetrator (boyfriend/husband, ex-boyfriend/husband), whether a
weapon was mentioned, whether threats had been made, and the intensity
level of violence. The goals of this project were (1) to present
epidemiological information concerning non-fatal workplace violence,
(2) to address the different types of workplace violence and
differences across those types, and (3) to analyze risk factors
associated with higher and lower intensity violence.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Universe:
All cases of workplace violence handled by the Lincoln
Police Department between January 1, 1996, and June 30, 1997.

Data Type(s):
administrative records data

Data Collection Notes:

The user guide, codebook, and data collection
instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF)
file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
This project investigated non-fatal workplace
violence in a metropolitan Midwestern city with a population of
approximately 200,000. Workplace violence was defined as any behavior
by an individual that was intended to harm workers of an organization,
including all instances of physical and verbal aggression and
violence. The principal investigator studied one police department's
criminal records of workplace violence incidents over an 18-month
period to create a proactive and reactive cluster model for assessing
risk factors associated with varying levels of violence intensity. The
goals of this project were (1) to present epidemiological information
concerning non-fatal workplace violence, (2) to address the different
types of workplace violence and differences across those types, and
(3) to analyze risk factors associated with higher and lower intensity
violence.

Study Design:
With the cooperation of the chief of police, the
principal investigator identified workplace violence incidents in the
Lincoln Police Department computer database. All combinations of
police contacts (i.e., rape, physical assault) and location codes
(businesses) that satisfied workplace violence definition parameters
were targeted. An initial computer search tagged approximately 1,000
cases. Closer scrutiny of the criminal incident summaries on the
computer printout enabled researchers to rule out ineligible cases
that did not meet the parameters of the workplace violence
definition. This portion of the project produced approximately 400
eligible incident reports. The next step involved the manual retrieval
of actual criminal incident records. This final stage of
identification resulted in a net total of 254 incidents filed with the
Lincoln Police Department over the investigated 18-month period that
qualified as workplace violence incidents. Four researchers coded the
cases on 17 factors, including the type of workplace violence, the
intimacy level of the perpetrator (boyfriend/husband,
ex-boyfriend/husband), whether a weapon was mentioned, whether threats
had been made, and the intensity level of violence. Two teams randomly
coded 20 percent of the 254 non-fatal workplace violence
incidents. Teams A and B were separated and instructed to individually
code their half of the 20 percent of randomly chosen cases, exchange
the cases once done, and discuss discrepancies that may have
occurred. Reliability for the initial step was held at a threshold of
.90 and no coding fell below .91 using a Kappa coefficient. Subsequent
to the first round of coding, cases were exchanged between Teams A and
B and the initial process was repeated. For the purpose of this
project, California's Occupational Safety and Health Association
(Cal/OSHA) categorization of workplace violence types was used. In the
first type of workplace violence (Type I) the perpetrator had no
legitimate relationship to the workplace and usually entered the
workplace to commit a robbery or other criminal act. In the second
category (Type II), the aggressor was either the recipient or the
object of a service provided by the affected workplace or the
victim. Finally, in the third category (Type III) the perpetrator had
an employment-related involvement with the workplace, such as an
assault by a current or former employee, supervisor or manager,
current/former spouse or lover, relative or friend, or some other
person who had a dispute involving an employee of the workplace.

Sample:
Not applicable.

Data Source:

Data were obtained from case records from the Lincoln
Police Department.

Description of Variables:
Variables include location of the incident, type of
violence, level of injury, threats, motives, property damage, use of
weapon, time of year of incident, relationship between victim and
offender, presence of witnesses, whether the offender had a prior
criminal record, scale of violence intensity, and workplace violence
typology. Demographic variables include the age, sex, and ethnicity of
the victims and offenders.

Response Rates:
Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales:
The principal investigator created scales for type of
violence and violence intensity.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

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